A frequent critic of the Kremlin, Latynina has said the harassment results from an atmosphere of hostility towards opposition politicians and journalists actively encouraged by Russian authorities.

Last year she had a bucket of feces thrown over her on her way to work, and in July attackers released a smelly gas into her home, causing suffering to eight people including children, she said.

Earlier this month Latynina’s car caught fire in what she called an assassination attempt.

“The people who did this are prepared for human casualties,” she told the liberal Ekho Moskvy radio station on Saturday. It was “pretty frightening,” she added.

She said her parents had also left the country.

Latynina has a column in the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper and her weekly program on Ekho Moskvy, “Kod Dostupa”, or “Access Code”, is among the station’s most popular. She is also a former Moscow Times columnist.

On Friday she was awarded the "Kamerton" prize for defending human rights and freedom of the press by the Russian Journalism Union. The prize was founded in 2013 in honor of investigative journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead in her apartment building in 2006.